says. “If I have my way, you’ll be back in California before the week’s up.”
“One can hope.” I move the boxes to the floor. “Who used to live here?”
Harper groans. Because evidently the sound of my voice puts her over the edge. I look over my shoulder and wait for her to reply, which, with a huge eye roll, she finally does.
“Tallulah Josey.”
“Your friend?”
She arches an eyebrow. “Tallulah thought she was slyer than a cat in a fish factory. When the teachers were all up in arms today, she took it upon herself to sneak into the front office and call her old boyfriend, who wasn’t even that good-looking. Anyway, she got expelled this afternoon.”
I stop unpacking.
“Who caught her making the call?” I ask.
She keeps brushing her hair.
“Who turned her in?”
She clears her throat.
“You know that expulsion means death, right? Harper?”
She flings her brush down at her duvet and scowls at me. But she doesn’t say anything.
“I see,” I say and start making my bed. “But I’m the murderer.”
“I guess we’ll both be sleeping with one eye open.”
AFTER BARELY SURVIVING the onslaught of glares and whispers in the bathroom Monday morning, I leave the dorm to find Ben leaning against a tree. He’s wearing his cardigan because his blazer’s up in my room. He looks at me and smiles apprehensively. And I forget why I was angry with him last night.
Then I remember.
And now I have to decide if I want to stay mad at him to prove some sort of point or let it go so I can feel what it’s like to hold his hand as I walk to my first-period workshop. Which is instructed by Garnet. Which makes me think he probably shouldn’t show up there with me. Which means it’s pointless to hold hands because it’s only a thirty-second walk to the Rex Paimonde building.
“Still mad?” he asks.
I shrug. I’m undecided.
Out of nowhere, Pilot comes flying at us. It looks like he’s going to crash right through us, but he stops short, grinning in his nasty way. Ben and I grab hands on instinct; I hadn’t realized we had an instinctive need to connect. Decision made: I’m not mad at him.
“Bonnie and Clyde,” Pilot says to us. “What’s it like to look the guy you killed in the face?”
“Kinda like I imagine Superman feels when he destroys a villain,” I reply.
Ben tugs my hand. “Come on, Anne. He’s never been worth it.”
As we’re walking away, Pilot grabs my arm.
“Not so fast,” he says. “Voletto wants to see you in his office.”
“And he sent you to tell me?” I shrug free. “Doubtful.”
“I’m your Guardian. So yeah. He wanted you there ten minutes ago.”
“Fine. I’ll be right there.”
“I’m not leaving without you. Come on.”
I glare at him. “Could you give me a second with Ben?”
“Oh, right, Clyde needs to kiss Bonnie good-bye.” He gives Ben the finger but takes a few steps away.
“What would the headmaster want with you?” Ben asks me.
“Who cares? Listen, Ben, I hope you gave some thought to this Garnet situation.”
“I did.”
“Tell me good news.”
He kisses me and smiles. “Great news: I’m sticking with you. I told her last night.”
Crestfallen, I watch Ben as he tells me not to worry and struts happily away. I turn to follow Pilot to Goethe Hall, where we sit and wait outside Dia’s office. I try to clear my head of the frustration of knowing Ben’s giving up a future with me in exchange for the present; I stare blankly ahead as the janitor, Lou Knows, scrapes black letters spelling HEADMASTER VILLICUS off the cloudy window of the door. When he notices Pilot and me, he scowls at Pilot and hands him a stencil pack, black paint, and a thin brush.
“You’re my assistant,” Lou says, and starts away. “Not the other way ’round.”
Pilot tugs off his jacket, revealing the coveralls I saw yesterday. So that’s his role here. Not just my Guardian but also an assistant janitor.
The door to the office swings in. Hiltop stares at me.
“You’re late,” she says to me.
“You?”
But just then a smiling, dazzling Dia appears at Hiltop’s side. He’s a wearing a linen tunic that’s partly tucked into leather pants, which hug his long legs. His feet are bare. His sleeves are rolled up. He seems to have more tattoos, brighter tattoos, than he had yesterday. I can clearly read Dia + Gia = 4Ever on one of the larger ones. I see also tiny tick marks representing his thousands of followers, like Teddy mentioned.
“Anne!” Dia declares, swinging the door further open and elbowing Hiltop aside as he does. “You’re finally here. Don’t mind Mephisto—what a grouch, hey? Come in, come in!”
“Enjoy it while it lasts, Dia,” Hiltop says with a sneer.
“As long as Anne’s around,” he says, “I can depend on you being constantly outsmarted, Meph.”
I step by Hiltop and follow Dia inside, where I find Invidia lounging on a raised divan and watching me as I enter the room, which has been completely renovated in the mere hours Dia has been headmaster.
“Please, sit,” Dia says, swinging a thickly cushioned chair on its swivel and stopping it just as it faces me. “It’s comfortable. Go on.”
I’m sure it’s comfortable. Everything in Dia’s office is inviting. He’s taken what was once an oppressively hot gothic-styled room filled with war medals, lit by fire, and hidden from sunlight, and transformed it into a whitewashed study you’d read a great novel in while sipping hot tea on a rainy day; he’s even filled the bookshelves with what, I squint to see, are art books—thousands of them. Soft light glows in twinkling sconces and chandeliers hanging from the molded tray ceiling and falls on dozens of mirrors in all shapes and sizes, which hang on the newly painted panel walls. Pale white sculptures of Aphrodite, Helen, and Salome look both bashfully and knowingly at me, while toppling stacks of oversized ivory-colored cushions rest uncertainly against the walls behind them, layers of sheepskin blankets beneath. A dozen enormous canvases and an easel rest against the side of Dia’s desk, where he’s gesturing for me to join him.
Invidia
